Second Dominion (Fourth Age)Aurean Cycle no. 462 of the Macbeth dynasty, reign of Aldric IISecond Quadrant, Crestoria (Seat Planet of House Rouge)
The first call died without a sound. The second hung on a milky screen until the cursor settled on "no answer." On the third, the hologram didn't even form: only a waiting line that kept pulsing, stubborn, and a polite beep that scratched her eardrum. Clarisse lifted the tablet, rotated it as if the angle might change the verdict, then set it down with a snap on the parapet's edge.
Below her, Crestoria breathed softly. The Opulence alcove she'd retreated to opened onto a slice of blue city, interlocks of bridges and terraces. Her image reflected in the glass: hair pinned high, features taut—one of those days when every tiny imperfection looked like a crack.
She tried again. Same result.
She forced two slow breaths. Then closed the channel.
Lacrosse never answered on the first try. Sometimes he forgot the volume, sometimes he wasted time hunting for the best light, sometimes he got distracted. But not like this. Not through four, five, six calls in a row. And not with that full silence. The kind that doesn't sound like "I can't" but like "I'm not there."
Her thumb trembled, just a little. She stilled it by gripping the tablet edge too hard. She'd already tried the secondary codes, the ones you "don't use unless you must." None of them latched.
She rubbed a hand at her temple. Fine. Fine. It wouldn't be the first time a route lost signal. Not the first time grav-buses acted up. Not the first time he failed to grasp the difference between a gate's time zone and an "I'll call you later."
Only this time something in her said it wasn't that.
The right frame for that sensation—much as she hated to admit it—was Mareque.
She left the alcove and crossed two corridors, an interior garden, a helical ramp. Each step gave her back the palace's familiar sounds: the calibrated sigh of air slats, an automatic harp in the distance, metal that never squeaks.
She didn't knock. She entered.
Mareque's atelier was half lab, half office, zero theatre—when it wasn't needed. It smelled of light solvents and warm resin; the suspended panels showed curves, partial names, legendless maps. He sat at a worktable, dark shirt with sleeves rolled, thin gloves protecting his skin from dust, eyes on three floating panels scrolling at different speeds. One of the house staff raised the atelier's light by a notch when Clarisse appeared; an automatic, trained gesture. He glanced up just enough to let her know he'd seen her at the threshold's first vibration.
"You try," Clarisse said, no greetings, offering him the tablet.
Mareque slid a finger along the edge, opened one of his own channels. Waited less than ten seconds and closed it.
"Line not active."
"It's not just 'not active,'" she countered. She set the tablet on the table, pulled up the call log, and slid it in front of him: a series of close attempts, one after another, all failed. "He hasn't answered in hours. Too many. While he was en route to Alay."
"En route to Alay," he echoed, as if to check the word sounded right in that room.
"Yes. I'm not dancing around it." She held his gaze, unblinking.
He took the tablet, needed only a two-finger skim through the history. He set it down—not like laying down a weight, but like returning something you don't want to add to. "I understand."
Silence. They looked at each other. One, two breaths.
"You staged all of this," Clarisse went on, quiet, measured. "You convinced Futura to make that squeeze. You put a frame around a convoy that had to look cleaner than the others. You put a frame around his role. I'm not accusing your imagination, mon frère. I'm asking you: where does your frame break?"
He nudged his work glasses up to his forehead. Nothing theatrical. "Not here."
"Where, then?" One step closer. "Because 'here' is where he isn't answering."
Mareque exhaled. "You exhaust the simple reasons first: faulty line, broken device, dead zone. Alay isn't the center of the galaxy, and Woimar has its gaps. You know that. I know that. He… pretends he does," he tried a half-smile that died at once.
"It's not that," she said. "Not this time. Not with me."
He studied her. No irony. "What tells you it isn't?"
"That it's the first time the silence feels like an answer."
A servant passed a clean cloth over a stand's edge without making a sound. The atelier seemed to hold its breath with them.
"All right," Mareque conceded. "Then we do this. If it's noise, we filter it. If it's a signal, we find it. We can move the civic Listening channels on the nodes that matter, without exposing names, as per procedure. We can ask the people who need to know if there were recorded events. 'Events' in general."
"Without saying 'who'?" she verified.
"Without saying 'who.'"
"And you think they'll answer?" One eyebrow arched, not amused. "To us?"
"Depends how you ask." A minimal lift of the shoulders. "And who signs."
She understood what he meant. She didn't ask more. "Do it."
He gestured and the servant vanished, noiseless. Mareque lit a fourth panel—the one he never kept visible when others were present. Clarisse noticed and let it pass: not the moment to assert protocol.
"In the meantime," she resumed, closer, "answer one precise question: tell me just how 'exposed' Alay is to someone without our protections."
"More than it seems. Woimar has a Listening Office that sieves everything: flows, corridors, access. Names aren't needed—profiles suffice. If a new face enters the wrong places with the wrong company, anonymous logs pop up."
"And you knew that."
"I knew the general risk. I have no indicators on who saw what. And I didn't run his name through anywhere. And yes, even if I'd suspected it, I wouldn't have written 'don't bring him.' Mother said: walk."
"And you said: frame."
"I said: trace," he corrected, curt. "I'm not writing poetry, Clarisse. We put a useless word in a useful document to see who would repeat it. It was a method. It wasn't an invitation to a hunt."
"And now?"
"Well, we know someone bit. Now we wait for returns from the nodes—" he glanced sideways, where the newly opened panel was loading, "—and decide if it's noise or signal."
Clarisse stepped toward the window, then back again. "Is that enough for you?"
"No."
"Not for me either."
They locked eyes again. It was an argument they'd been having for years without ever having it the same way: she with names, he with contours.
"Have you spoken to Mother today?" he asked at last.
"Not yet."
"I'll do it," Clarisse said. "I want authorization for a dedicated channel. If he calls, it doesn't pass through you, it doesn't pass through the servant, it doesn't pass through the palace. It passes to me. And if he doesn't call, we move."
"I won't hinder you," he answered, simply.
She measured him a moment. "An elegant way to say 'I can't stop you.'"
"A courteous way to say 'I don't want to.'"
The panel trilled softly. A list of dry labels scrolled, text segments, stamps, sigils. Clarisse caught only a few words: "Woimar," "anomalous energy activity," "private perimeter," "no details." Enough to nail her gaze to the screen's edge.
"What is it?" she asked, already hating the tone.
Mareque read more than his face showed. "Noise."
"I don't believe you."
"Anomalous activities in the time window that interests you, yes," he allowed. "Without specifics. Could be a test, could be a crisis, could be a comfort blackout in the rooms of someone who wants to feel important. Woimar lives on 'anomalous activities.'"
"And we live on exceptions," she pressed. "Don't make me take the long way around. Where is the event?"
"Perimeter of a peripheral property. No clear address. No house name linked. No police alarm in the clear. 'Private.'"
"So it's 'important.'"
"So it's 'private.'"
The room seemed to tighten by a degree. Clarisse ran her tongue over dry lips. "He was there. Or was about to be," she murmured. It wasn't a conclusion; it was a blade trying to slide in on its own.
"Or he was elsewhere and this is unrelated," Mareque replied, and you could see it cost him to stay sober.
"And your useless word in the documents?" she jabbed. "Is it coming back on you?"
"My useless word is doing exactly what it should: telling me who repeats it," he said. "And yes, it's come back from nodes I don't like."
"Claw?"
"Not only."
Another vibration on the panel, this one sharper: an internal channel had opened with central Opulence. Clarisse saw the blink reflected in his pupil. "Mother?"
"No," Mareque said. "Internal Cross. Logistics. They've noticed you're lighting nonstandard channels." His gaze met hers straight on. "Want me to open it?"
"No. Leave it. In two minutes I'll open it myself. First, we finish."
He nodded. "All right."
"Let's suppose your 'not only' includes the Lysander," Clarisse said. "You promised them a catalyst for Endalo. They convinced themselves they could touch it. Now the cargo isn't there. And we have a brother who isn't answering. Are you aware you set more than one knife in motion?"
"Yes," he said, without trying to justify himself. "Which is why we need order now, not panic."
"The kind of order that doesn't exist when someone dies," she shot back, flat. The thought came to her like an omen, not a prediction. She pushed it back, with effort. "I'm asking you something simple, Mareque. Do you tell the truth when it suits you or not?"
"Yes," he said. "And when it doesn't. Today it doesn't, and I'm telling you anyway: I built a frame because Mother decided a painting. If the image cracks, it won't be because we framed it. It'll be because someone hit hard."
"And do you know from which side the blow came?"
"I suspect sides," he admitted. "But suspicions won't bring you a call back."
"No," she said. "But they make you choose one gate over another. And today, I don't have time for both."
She reached for the tablet. He handed it over before she grasped it. Their fingers brushed; enough to remind her how much she hated him when he kept silent by the book.
"If he calls, I know before you," Clarisse said.
"No doubt," he replied, almost a shadow of a smile.
"And if he doesn't, I'm going to get him."
"I won't stop you," he repeated.
She moved toward the door. Stopped halfway, as if she'd forgotten a garment, and came back half a step. "One last thing."
"C'est à dire?"
"If I find out someone got to him through one of our channel leaks, there won't be a single intact lock in this palace." She looked at him without blinking. "There won't be a frame in this palace I wouldn't gladly break."
Mareque didn't back away. "It isn't so," he said. "You can hate my hand, but don't point at the finger that isn't mine."
"I'm going to hate where it's needed," she replied.
The panel's tone shifted. One of the servants moved closer with a tray of water and a pair of temporary seals for priority calls. Clarisse took them without looking.
"I'll update you," she said, already turning.
"And I you," he answered.
She left the atelier without looking back. The corridor returned the breath the room had taken. She'd already composed three messages to Mother in her head, one to Internal Cross, one to External Logistics. Her thumb slid surely, like on those days when writing was easier than speaking.
As she turned the corner, the dome over the Promenade changed by a shade: one of the light bands dropped half a tone, then rose again. No one turned. At that hour, it meant nothing. To her, it did.
She stopped for a second—just long enough to impose on her body the measure her mind denied her. Then she started walking again. Each step was another line in the plan she was piecing together: dedicated channel, nodes to wake, contacts to call. And beneath it all, the simple voice that needed no structure.
Lacrosse, answer.
--
In the atelier, Mareque's panel filled with a new sterile notice:Woimar/Listening Office – internal memo, level 2.The line, dry, gave no details. It only said: "energy anomaly confirmed." And below, in small type, "sealed memories to unlock on contact."
It wasn't a channel visible to others. Clarisse didn't see it.
Mareque closed his eyes for a long second. He didn't smile. He didn't allow himself an elegant line. He simply touched a point on the screen and opened a channel on standby, without forwarding it. Then he stood, ran a clean hand over his face, and removed his gloves with a slow gesture.
"Prepare the Stained Glass Room," he told the servant. "And send a reminder to the Cross: if Mother calls back, the line comes straight in here."
He moved to the window and followed with his gaze the trajectory of a drone sliding beyond the dome. It looked like just another point in Crestoria's night. As always, the palace gave the city the illusion that nothing could break its profile.
He knew it wasn't true. And for the first time in weeks, the word that rose in his throat wasn't "frame."
It was "time."